New hire has high hopes for Spire hoops program

Enrollment for the academy, which launched in fall 2012, likely will rise in 2018-19. Students can attend Saint John School in Ashtabula or Grand River Academy in Austinburg, and online classes are available.

Jermaine Jackson was announced as Spire's new head basketball coach in late June. For Spire Institute, a Geneva athletic complex with more than 750,000 square feet of enclosed space and 160 total acres, the basketball program is a critical source of revenue, since the high school and postgrad teams account for the majority of the academy's enrollment total.

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Jermaine Jackson

Jermaine Jackson played for five teams in a five-year NBA career.

The 42-year-old has the look and feel of a pro — "I can still go out there right now and show the kids that I played on that level," he says — and isn't shy about his plan to develop NBA prospects in Ashtabula County.

"When they announce his name (on draft night), everybody in Europe, all those countries that are watching the NBA draft, just heard Spire Academy," Jackson said.

The Detroit native was announced as Spire's new head basketball coach in late June. He's part of a new three-person team — which includes Tony Tucker, the executive director of academy and basketball operations, and associate academy director Justin Brantley — that hopes to build on the heights the hoops program reached under former coach Bobby Bossman.

The Jermaine Jackson File

NBA career: Jackson appeared in a combined 135 games in five seasons with the Toronto Raptors (48 games), Milwaukee Bucks (30), Atlanta Hawks (29), New York Knicks (21) and Detroit Pistons (seven).

NBA claim to fame: He was part of the Oct. 4, 2005, trade between the New York Knicks and Chicago Bulls that featured Tim Thomas, Eddy Curry and Antonio Davis. Picks included in the deal were later used to select LaMarcus Aldridge, Joakim Noah and Wilson Chandler.

Motown ties: Jackson, a Detroit native, was an assistant coach for three seasons at the University of Detroit Mercy, his alma mater, from 2015-18.

In 2017-18, about two-thirds of the academy's 60 students were basketball players, Spire chief operating officer Jeff Orloff said. Full room and board for high school students ranges from $52,000 to $58,000, and postgrad students are charged $40,000 to $45,000. (Scholarships are available.)

Orloff said enrollment for the academy, which launched in fall 2012, likely will rise in 2018-19. Students can attend Saint John School in Ashtabula or Grand River Academy in Austinburg, and online classes are available.

Bumping up the boarding academy's numbers would help the massive institute fill its 50,000 square feet of unused space, but the push is much more about quality than quantity, said Orloff, a former IMG senior vice president who joined Spire in 2010.

"Let's be realistic," the Spire COO said. "What's the percentage of kids that are going to go to the NBA? And even if they do, we need to put the things in place that they need to succeed on and off the court. I think these guys all understand and want that."

Jackson, who wasn't drafted after a stellar career at the University of Detroit Mercy, is on board with Orloff's plan. The coach says the COO is his personality twin — "We fight all the time," Jackson said — and Orloff says Jackson, more than any previous hire, is "holding us accountable."

But that doesn't mean the 1999 Horizon League Player of the Year — a former point guard who calls Kevin Durant a friend and Larry Brown a close friend and mentor — is going to curtail his oncourt expectations.

He points to Oak Hill Academy — a Mouth of Wilson, Va., boarding school that has produced the likes of Carmelo Anthony, Jerry Stackhouse, Rod Strickland and Rajon Rondo — as an example of what Spire can be.

Jackson said he has asked Brantley, the academy's new associate director, to add Oak Hill to Spire's schedule.

"They might beat our ass," Jackson said. "At the end of the day, it's a win-win for us. Now, when you're recruiting a kid — 'Damn, y'all played Oak Hill, Coach?' 'Oh, y'all only lost by nine?' Or, 'Damn, y'all beat Oak Hill by three?' Now it's a different story. Now you have kids calling you."

‘Championship movement'

Spire gained national attention in January, when The Washington Post wrote a feature story on Robert Bobroczkyi, a 7-foot-7 Romanian who is entering his junior season at the academy. But its hoops clubs have gained their fair share of attention the last few years, via national prep school rankings and Spire's list of eight to 10 NCAA Division I recruits each season.

Orloff believes Tucker, a former head basketball coach at IMG Academy, Jackson and Brantley can take the hoops program "to that next level."

During Spire's search for a basketball coach, Jackson urged Orloff to call Brown, whom the former guard met during a training camp stay with the Philadelphia 76ers, then coached by Brown, in 2000. Brown sang Jackson's praises to the Spire COO, and the legendary coach is a friend with whom Jackson will talk basketball for hours on any given day.

Jackson also was coached by former Cavs boss Lenny Wilkens (during a 48-game stint with the Toronto Raptors in 2001-02 and '02-03), and his lengthy international career included guidance from Ettore Messina, a San Antonio Spurs assistant who has four Euroleague championships on his résumé.

Along the way, Jackson, who in 2018 completed a three-year run as an assistant at Detroit Mercy, said one of the many things he's learned is the importance of "having a championship movement.

"What I mean by movement," he said, "is championship conversations every day. When you go into a coaches' meeting, that's a championship conversation. When you go into practice, that's a championship movement. In the weight room, off the court, when we go to picnics together, because we'll do a lot of things as a family, as a movement — that's the biggest thing to me."

Managing the many personalities of a 40-plus-player roster doesn't excite Jackson. Instead, what gets him going is the getting the chance to know each athlete. As a point guard, he said he had to be aware "that my shooter loves butter pecan ice cream."

That's part of being a leader, Jackson emphasized, and he hopes to "build every kid up before we even get serious on the basketball court."

The latter will come soon enough.

"To be a pro, every day is a lifestyle," Jackson said. "It's your body, your mindset, it's everything."

When a visitor expresses skepticism that Spire, a FINA-sanctioned, Olympic-level training facility for swimmers, can become a prep basketball power on the level of Oak Hill, Jackson responds with the authority of Brown and the quick release of a Durant dagger.